Arrest of five Left-leaning activists in June In a 5000-page charge sheet, little on urban rascals’ plot to kill Modi

December 06, 2018 06:17 AM

COURTESY MIRROR DEC 6

Arrest of five Left-leaning activists in JuneIn a 5000-page charge sheet, little on urban rascals’ plot to kill ModiOn inciting the Bhima Koregaon riots, the charge sheet offers nothing specific — only reference to an email and minutes of a few meetings| Shruti Ganpatye and Sunil Baghelmirrorfeedback@timesgroup.comTWEETS @MumbaiMirror

The Pune police have very little in their charge sheet against the five Leftleaning activists arrested in August so far as the two most sensational charges made against them – a plot to assassinate the prime minister and the role they played in inciting violence at Bhima Koregaon in January that left one person dead and several others injured.

The charge sheet quotes more or less the same evidence that the Pune police had spoken of at a press conference after the arrests – an email written by a certain ‘R’ to Comrade Prakash on April 18, 2017 talking of a “Rajiv Gandhi-type” operation; and a series of speeches that led to the violence at Bhima Koregaon.

The 5,000 page charge sheet against activist Rona Wilson, lawyer Surendra Gadling, Dalit activist Sudhir Dhawale, tribal rights activist Mahesh Raut, and Professor Soma Sen devotes less than ten pages to the plot to kill the PM and the charge of inciting Bhima Koregaon violence. Rest of the charge sheet, reviewed by Mumbai Mirror journalists, is focused only on establishing their link with the banned CPI-M.

Forget a trail of emails that would be triggered to plan a “Rajiv Gandhi-type” operation, the Pune police have not even been able to trace a response to the mail ‘R’ wrote to Comrade Prakash proposing “concrete steps to end Modi-raj.” This leads to the question whether the ‘Rajiv Gandhi-type’ operation – even if one assumes it was contemplated – was ever sanctioned?

While the April 18, 2017 mail also refers to procurement of arms and a second e-mail written by Comrade Prakash to ‘R’ on December 26, 2017 talks about a discussion about procuring some ‘equipment’ via Nepal, the charge sheet remains mum about the findings of the police investigations so far – were the ‘equipment’ referred to in the e-mail delivered? If yes, then to whom and where and if the cops have made any seizures?

On the charge of inciting violence in Bhima Koregoan, the police have attached an email sent to to comrade Rona by comrade M on January 2, 2018. It says [verbatim] – “Com. Manglu, Com. Deepu have been coordinating the Koregaon programme since 2 months with Com. Sudhir, they have been able to gather support from large section of Dalits across the state. RDAA Com. Jignesh and Com. Umar are young fighters of our revolution, with strong support from Com. Prakash Ambedkar we can foresee the outcome of their efforts in consolidating many Dalit struggles across the country within few years.” There is no mention in the email of any effort to trigger clashes. The same email also refers to funds being raised for “future programmes.” The email also refers to Bhima Koregaon agitation as “successful” and advises that a fact finding mission be instituted to look into the circumstances that led to the “death of a youth” in the clashes.

Apart from this email, the charge sheet has an pamphlet attached on the Bhima Koregaon programme and brief minutes of the meetings held in Pune, Aurangabad and Mumbai to prepare for Bhima Koregaon Shauryadin. The pamphlet has over 50 names of organisers including Justice (retired) P B Sawant, Raosaheb Kasabe, Justice (retired) B G Kolse Patil, J V Pawar, Vilas Wagh and Bhai Vaidya. The minutes of the meetings, however, do not refer to a single speech that can be described as incendiary.

Two volumes of the 13 volumes that comprise the bulky charge sheet are devoted to call data records (CDR). However, these are plain listings of numbers, with the tower locations of only a few.

The rest of the 11 volumes of the charge sheet are devoted to emails exchanged between the five and with other alleged CPI-M leaders, and data from hard disks and pen drives. The literature attached with the charge sheet is mostly periodic CPI-M reports; press releases; documents detailing policy and structure of the organization; articles in magazines supported by CPI-M; a power point presentation on Salwa Judum; reports of internal meetings; articles on atrocities against Dalits, tribals, farmers and women; papers on political prisoners; and purported speeches by CPI-M leaders during their regional party meetings.

Advocate Siddharth Patil, who is representing Sudhir Dhawale, said the charge sheet says nothing new. “The prime allegations were about the plot to kill the PM and inciting violence at Bhima Koregaon. However, there are only two emails attached regarding these two charges in the charge sheet. There is no additional evidence to corroborate or substantiate the charges,” he said.

Advocate Nihalsingh Rathod, who is an associate of Surendra Gadling and is representing Mahesh Raut, said that the entire charge sheet is full of Maoist literature. “Apart from the two emails mentioning the plot to kill the PM and the Bhima Koregaon violence, there is nothing in the charge sheet. Also, the idea to kill someone cannot become a plot to kill that person. Was there any further planning in that direction? There was nothing. The emails are fabricated,” Rathod said.

Dr Shivaji Pawar, Assistant Police Commissioner, Swargate Division, Pune, who is investigating the case, claimed that the charge sheet has enough evidence against the accused. “We will produce sufficient evidence at the time of trial. I will not speak now,” he said.

Public prosecutor Advocate Ujjwala Pawar, who is representing the state in the case, did not reply to calls and text messages